Monday, October 23, 2017

Learning SQL Via Code School

Before moving to this rotation in Bruneck, I went to San Francisco and blogged about the impact that I had on me as a person. During my time there, I realized that I needed to learn how to code and integrate coding into my daily work life so that I would not lose the skill. This worked out really perfectly for me timing wise because working in a company that prioritizes Industry 4.0, we are all about learning from the massive amount of data that we collected on a daily basis to improve our efficiency. Using the data to make meaningful statistical analysis is something I do in my daily life but to cleanse data for use in data science applications or in dashboard making is a new skill for me!

My friend Thomas had told me about Code School website and how it taught you to code using examples. The basic format is a video, a quiz, and then an example lesson that progresses in difficulty. There are usually three levels for the course and each level teaches you something new while building on what you learned before. I really enjoy how much fun they put into the lessons - for example - Mondo DB was all about owning a potions shop and how to create a database for a potion store. I did the all of the levels of anything database related in the first month of being in my new rotation but it was not too time consuming and actually a ton of fun!

I took the free levels of Python, SQL, and MondoDB and got hooked! I love how I learn something on the website and then try something in our database at work. Now, as part of my project, I am working on our first data lake and writing queries to answer the questions of production, quality and the management team. While tough sometimes, coding in SQL to get a specific answer to a question is a fun way to understand the information that we are collecting and what we might need more of in the future. I am learning so much through my mistakes and encouraged my boss to get into SQL as well. It's been really fun to pick her brain about the best way to do things in SQL to answer a question. Overall, if you have some free time and would like to give your brain a challenge, check this awesome website out!

(No, this is not sponsored - I just really love this website but wait until they have a 50% sale to get the unlimited package for the year - it's better for your wallet!)